OneJerusalem.com

Yakshemash! Borat Sagdiyev, who comes from where people are addicted to horse urine and rape, incest and dog-killing, has the power to change the Kazakh culture, and perhaps even of the whole Eastern-European area, where the new film about his adventures is banned.

Could Jewish British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen have imagined the impact of his nonsensical fictional character would be as strong? Beginning his career as a complete nobody, he somehow got to perform as what has become his alter-ego Ali G, a gangsta-wannabe, who very slyly tricked extremely influential people in the UK into saying some really embarrassing things.
In “Da Ali G Show” (first in the UK in Channel 4, then coming to the US, with HBO), Ali G got most of the attention, a quite successful film, a substantial fan base and has even coined some new terms (try consulting the fan-made Da Ali G Translator). In the same show along with the chauvinist, ill-dressed self-claimed rapper Ali G, and the not-so-bright gay Austrian fashion reporter Brüno, there was Borat. Also very ill-dressed and ill-mannered, Borat did and said absolutely everything prohibited, but most of the time got away with it thanks to his (seemingly) childish naïveté.

These days it is good old Borat – a fictitious character, yes? – who has quite a few big enemies. It’s funny to see how his anti-Semitic statements and the obviously imaginary things he tells of his “homeland Kazakhstan” are ridiculously taken all too seriously, especially when they are coming from a Jewish person who mumbles in a Hebrew-based gibberishy language. And, as low as some of his jokes can sometimes get, dis geeza Baron Cohen ain’t thick at all. Respect.

Check out his new film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, and being scheduled to arrive in Israel, we’ll soon get to hear what he has to say about us, too.